A new podcast episode hosted by Encylopedia Geopolitica and featuring Rob Phayre
How to get on a watchlist – Season 3 – Episode 5 – How To Deliver A Ransom
In December 2025 the team from Encyclopedia Geopolitica and Rob Phayre collaborated on a new podcast titled How to deliver a ransom. The how to get on a watchlist podcast series aims to sit with leading experts and discuss dangerous activities. Previous speakers include a wide range of experts. These include directors and senior leaders of government security agencies, professors and well known academics.
Throughout the podcasts the speakers discuss fascinating subjects. They take a red team / blue team approach which brings surprising insights. Obviously, the speakers are always speak carefully so that the red team never benefit from the knowledge shared. That said, the conversations are detailed with many of the thoughts behind the whys and how’s of what they do. Some of the anecdotes are breath taking!
While dramatic titles like ‘How to shoot down an airliner’, or ‘How to highjack a ship’ might raise some eyebrows, they are actually detailed looks at how the security services, or security experts approach those topics in order to prevent them from happening.
A popular episode in How to get on a watchlist – Season 3 is the episode titled, How to fake your identity. It’s written by a former CIA agent. She used to lead a whole team in the agency that focussed on supporting agents do the daring deeds that they had to do.
Episode 5 with Rob Phayre focusses on how to deliver a ransom. It’s based on his experience in Africa where over a twenty year period he and his team released more than eight hundred hostages. In order to achieve that they delivered more than a hundred million dollars in ransoms! Some of those ransoms broke world records that still stand today.
How to get on a watchlist – Listen now for free.
You can either listen through Youtube above, or you can listen through your favourite podcast service.
Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts, by RSS feed,
Alternatively, if you would like to learn more about the team at Encyclopedia Geopolitica, click here to visit their website.
If you enjoyed the podcast, and would like to learn more, you might enjoy Rob’s book How To Deliver A Ransom, which is available here to pre-order. It will be released in February 2025.
More information is also available at the books website. www.howtodeliveraransom.com